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[外媒编译] 【NYT2015.8.03】如何明智地生活

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发表于 2015-8-4 07:04 | 显示全部楼层 |阅读模式
本帖最后由 連長 于 2015-8-3 18:05 编辑

【中文标题】如何明智地生活
【原文标题】how to live wisely
【原文链接】NYT http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/education/edlife/how-to-live-wisely.html?src=me&module=Ribbon&version=origin®ion=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Most%20Emailed&pgtype=article

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想象你当一天系主任。你会执行哪项可行的改革措施来提升校园里的大学体验呢?

我多年来一直在问学生这个问题,其答案十分令人开眼界。几年前,答案里开始不那么常出现“调整历史课程”,或“改变组建实验室的方法”。一个不同的见解:“学会明智地生活”开始出现了。

好好生活的含义是什么?是高品质生活么?或是快乐的生活?不如我们来谈一下假如其中一个答案与另一个相排斥时我是怎么看待的,并谈下我是如何利用在学校的时间来构建出这些棘手问题的答案的。

最近有许多大学已经开始给学生提供一个契机来应对这些问题。在我的学校哈佛,一个由教职员和系主任组成的小团体开设了一堂不计学分的讲座课程“思索人生Reflecting on Your Life。” 形式比较随意:12名新生一组,在教职工,导师或系主任指导下相互讨论,整个课程分三次进行,每次进行90分钟。每年有100多名学生参与。

下面是五个学生们觉得特别有意思的练习。每个都设计用来帮助新生发掘出他们的目标,系统性地思考他们生活中的各个方面,并把他们的发现与在大学要实际做的事情联系起来。

1.第一个练习,我们让学生们列了一个清单:打算如何度过大学时光,对你来说什么比较重要?答案可能是课程、学业、和好朋友一起消遣、也许会在校外做志愿工作或是读课外书籍。然后,再让学生们列单子写出他们在空余时间实际做了什么,通常是上一周的日常,随后会比较两份清单。

最后,我们抛出这样一个问题:你计划做的与实际做到的,之间的重合度有多少?

只有少量学生在两份清单上找到了高度重叠部分,大部分学生则没有。他们花了大量宝贵时间在没有什么意义的活动上,对于这一结果,他们感到惊愕和沮丧。面临的挑战在于如何使你的日程安排讲出你的个人喜好。

2.决定专业是无法想象地困难的。我们组的一个学生曾经就在政府学与自然科学之间踌躇不决。那么她是如何打发她的业余时间的呢?她形容称她一直在政治学院活动,组织模拟联合国,还定期向《哈佛政治评论The Political Review》投稿。讨论组组长指出她没有在她的概况中谈及“实验室”一词。学生眼神里透出点怀疑,反问道:“实验室?为什么我应该在谈论空闲时间的话题中谈到实验室呢?”讨论结束后大概半个小时,组长收到一封表达感谢的电子邮件。

3.我管这个叫做“通识VS深究”练习。如果让你选择:在某一件事上做得卓越VS在许多领域做得还好,你会选择接近哪一种结果?我们有意图地邀请学生思索如何合理安排校园生活,不至于偏离自己精心选择的人生道路。

4.在核心价值观练习中,学生会准备一张写有25个单词的纸。这些词包括“尊严、爱、名誉、家庭、出类拔萃、财富和智慧”。他们要按要求圈出其中五个最能表达出他们核心价值观的单词。与此同时,我们会问,你将如何处理下列情形:你的其中一个核心价值观与其余的相斥。学生们发现这个问题相当难。有一个学生谈到了他个人的困境:他想成为一名外科医生,但他同时又想拥有一个大家庭。所以他的核心价值观包括“有用的”和“家庭"。他说他十分担心自己在成为一个出色的外科医生的同时,还能否做一个一心一意的父亲。学生们根本打不住思考这一例子,许多人意识到自己也面临类似的挑战。

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James YANG为《纽约时报》供图,图中英文译文为“当务之急”。

5.这个练习介绍了一个快乐渔夫简简单单地生活在一个小岛上的寓言故事。这位渔人每天花三两小时捕鱼,他捕的渔获不多,然后再卖给他的朋友们,至于当天剩余的时光,则与他的老婆和孩子们一起度过,他很享受这样的生活。他不愿看到他的悠闲生活发生任何改变。

一个新来的管理学硕士生参观了这座岛,并迅速预见了这位渔人的发家致富之道。他可以抓更多的鱼,开始做生意,去市场上卖鱼,开一家罐头食品厂,或许有一天还可以公开募股。最终他会真正意义上地成功。他还可以捐一些鱼给世界各地挨饿的儿童,甚至拯救生命。

渔夫问:“那之后呢?”

参观者回复说:“之后你就可以花大量的时间陪你的家人了啊,然而到那时,你将让我们的世界大不同。你将可以善用你的才能,让贫穷的儿童吃饱,而不是整天躺在那儿。”

我们要求学生把这则寓言应用到自己的生活中。是否对你而言,略有所获,比轻轻松松快快乐乐地与家人一起度过更为重要?或者悠闲的生活是否比努力工作,比利用你的才能,比如说做点生意,以此让世界变得更美好更加重要?

一般来说,这则浅显易懂的寓言引导我们不要去赞同。这些讨论鼓励大学新生思考什么是当务之急,让我们每个人都知道我们应不应该对广大的社区怀有责任感,我们的学生会在他们上大学期间来考量这些想法。

在讲座的终章部分,我对我的小组说:“告诉我一件今年让你改变想法的事情,”许多回答反映出了一个让人印象深刻的自省程度。三年后,当我们联系参与者时,近乎所有人都报告说那场讲座意义非凡,是把大学转变成了原本就应是浴火重生般体验的一部阶梯。

Imagine you are Dean for a Day. What is one actionable change you would implement to enhance the college experience on campus?
I have asked students this question for years. The answers can be eye-opening. A few years ago, the responses began to move away from “tweak the history course” or “change the ways labs are structured.” A different commentary, about learning to live wisely, has emerged.
What does it mean to live a good life? What about a productive life? How about a happy life? How might I think about these ideas if the answers conflict with one another? And how do I use my time here at college to build on the answers to these tough questions?
A number of campuses have recently started to offer an opportunity for students to grapple with these questions. On my campus, Harvard, a small group of faculty members and deans created a noncredit seminar called “Reflecting on Your Life.” The format is simple: three 90-minute discussion sessions for groups of 12 first- year students, led by faculty members, advisers or deans. Well over 100 students participate each year.
Here are five exercises that students find particularly engaging. Each is designed to help freshmen identify their goals and reflect systematically about various aspects of their personal lives, and to connect what they discover to what they actually do at college.
**1. **For the first exercise, we ask students to make a list of how they want to spend their time at college. What matters to you? This might be going to class, studying, spending time with close friends, perhaps volunteering in the off-campus community or reading books not on any course’s required reading list. Then students make a list of how they actually spent their time, on average, each day over the past week and match the two lists.
Finally, we pose the question: How well do your commitments actually match your goals?
A few students find a strong overlap between the lists. The majority don’t. They are stunned and dismayed to discover they are spending much of their precious time on activities they don’t value highly. The challenge is how to align your time commitments to reflect your personal convictions.
2. Deciding on a major can be amazingly difficult. One student in our group was having a hard time choosing between government and science. How was she spending her spare time? She described being active in the Institute of Politics, running the Model U.N. and writing regularly for The Political Review. The discussion leader noted that she hadn’t mentioned the word “lab” in her summary. “Labs?” replied the student, looking incredulous. “Why would I mention labs when talking about my spare time?” Half an hour after the session, the group leader got an email thanking him for posing the question.
3. I call this the Broad vs. Deep Exercise. If you could become extraordinarily good at one thing versus being pretty good at many things, which approach would you choose? We invite students to think about how to organize their college life to follow their chosen path in a purposeful way.
4. In the Core Values Exercise, students are presented with a sheet of paper with about 25 words on it. The words include “dignity,” “love,” “fame,” “family,” “excellence,” “wealth” and “wisdom.” They are told to circle the five words that best describe their core values. Now, we ask, how might you deal with a situation where your core values come into conflict with one another? Students find this question particularly difficult. One student brought up his own personal dilemma: He wants to be a surgeon, and he also wants to have a large family. So his core values included the words “useful” and “family.” He said he worries a lot whether he could be a successful surgeon while also being a devoted father. Students couldn’t stop talking about this example, as many saw themselves facing a similar challenge.
5. This exercise presents a parable of a happy fisherman living a simple life on a small island. The fellow goes fishing for a few hours every day. He catches a few fish, sells them to his friends, and enjoys spending the rest of the day with his wife and children, and napping. He couldn’t imagine changing a thing in his relaxed and easy life.
A recent M.B.A. visits this island and quickly sees how this fisherman could become rich. He could catch more fish, start up a business, market the fish, open a cannery, maybe even issue an I.P.O. Ultimately he would become truly successful. He could donate some of his fish to hungry children worldwide and might even save lives.
“And then what?” asks the fisherman.
“Then you could spend lots of time with your family,” replies the visitor. “Yet you would have made a difference in the world. You would have used your talents, and fed some poor children, instead of just lying around all day.”
We ask students to apply this parable to their own lives. Is it more important to you to have little, accomplish little, yet be relaxed and happy and spend time with family? Or is it more important to you to work hard, use your talents, perhaps start a business, maybe even make the world a better place along the way?
Typically, this simple parable leads to substantial disagreement. These discussions encourage first-year undergraduates to think about what really matters to them, and what each of us feels we might owe, or not owe, to the broader community — ideas that our students can capitalize on throughout their time at college.
At the end of our sessions, I say to my group: “Tell me one thing you have changed your mind about this year,” and many responses reflect a remarkable level of introspection. Three years later, when we check in with participants, nearly all report that the discussions had been valuable, a step toward turning college into the transformational experience it is meant to be.


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